The expression of polypeptides on the surface of bacteria and bacteriophage has been pursued for several years, in part because of interest in recombinant antibody production. Many other potential applications exist, including the production of genetically-engineered whole cell adsorbents, construction of “peptide libraries”, cell bound enzymes, and use as live vaccines or immunogens to generate antibodies.
In bacteria, one approach to obtaining surface expressed foreign proteins has been the use of native membrane proteins as a carrier for a foreign protein. In general, most attempts to develop methods of anchoring proteins on a bacterial surface have focused on fusion of the desired recombinant polypeptide to a native protein that is normally exposed on the cell's exterior with the hope that the resulting hybrid will also be localized on the surface.